BarnBridge is a risk tokenization protocol. Its applications allow users to hedge factors such as yield sensitivity or asset price volatility by tokenizing various levels of risk exposure to a given underlying liquidity pool. These tokenized positions, referred to as either senior or junior tranches, are then as liquid as any other ERC-721 or ERC-20 token, respectively.

BarnBridge

Katherine Ross

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">subscribe</a>.



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Brutal week so far for altcoins.&nbsp;



In the stock market, you generally look for a Santa Claus rally at the end of December into early January as a nice, green way to close out the year and welcome a new chapter.&nbsp;



Whether we could see a similar thing in crypto is still up in the air. Right now it’s looking iffy.



On the upside, altcoin leverage managed to hold through Dec. 5, but Monday saw the biggest daily long liquidation event since May 2021, as K33 analysts noted. Ouch.&nbsp;



“Ever since the election, long bets have been rewarded. This dynamic allowed open interest to accumulate with a steadily growing long concentration. This growth is evident by looking at total open interest in altcoins relative to the total altcoin market cap,” they wrote.&nbsp;



“This metric grew from 3.57% to 4.42% from the election until December 9, amidst a very high funding rate environment in December. [Monday’s] liquidation cascade saw altcoin leverage plunge by $12.8bn, reducing the relative altcoin leverage to 3.96%.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc6JmswNJEd0xTGKvFzom7c2fKBXUuUIFDcpxfVf3U0AIWhO4iecXpnZFQGTLoOqoSfmApoQ2IR4yMzPZaCpbEmDlBxWnTMdX_wJAH8dZsJa1XiYSlKGKxfANYHYIcGLpob19ik?key=3EbJpl66pmtt39sBTheYnS8N" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A look at open interest in altcoins</figcaption></figure>



To put those metrics into perspective, altcoin open interest marked the “biggest relative decline in altcoin leverage since the FTX collapse.”



BitOoda analysts, following Monday’s sell-off, said that they expect more “sideways trading through year-end marked by periods of low liquidity and choppy price action.” And we very well may see that given the highly leveraged products and “exaggerated” price action moves.&nbsp;



The good news, however, is that while this is a decently sized bump in the road, it doesn’t sound like it’s impacting the bullish 2025 outlook shared lately by many.&nbsp;



Perhaps there’s still hope for a Santa rally.



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Santa rally? Altcoins could use a Christmas miracle

Jack Kubinec

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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I was on a Google Meet with Benedikt Schuppli when the co-founder and CEO of Obligate began screen-sharing his email inbox.&nbsp;



“Can you see this?,” he asked, pulling up an email from a Swiss bank with a large graphic advertising a 175% participation rate for a financial product. “If this wasn’t a Swiss bank you’d be thinking, ‘Well, that’s obviously some type of scam. Someone’s trying to sell me 175% yield.’”



The Swiss bank was offering Schuppli a structured product, a financial instrument that the CEO called the “degen products of TradFi” — and he’s now trying to bring it to crypto with his new startup Margarita Finance.



The basic premise of Margarita is that users can easily mix their yield appetite and risk tolerance like a cocktail. Schuppli hopes the project’s blockchain backing can cut out intermediaries that drive up costs and let a new market segment tap into structured products, which offer the sort of risk curve that DeFi users tend to like.



Structured products are pre-packaged investments that involve a bond and a call option typically on a basket of assets or an index. Structured products don’t lose their principal investment if the optioned assets fall in value because of the bond’s appreciation in value, so they theoretically present less risk than just trading options.



Traditional structured products have lots of middlemen that charge fees, and these fees are passed onto investors, Schuppli said. With Margarita, he said, his team has created a “fully programmable digital asset” that makes fee structures less opaque.&nbsp;



Margarita currently lets users invest a minimum of 10 USDC with an option on the price of SOL. Investors can set their preferred yield and maturity date, and they’re then offered a structured product, the return of which depends on if SOL’s price falls below a given barrier. The options are priced by Bermuda-based STS digital and come with a “whole-ass legal documentation” that Schuppli, a lawyer by training, pointed out to me.&nbsp;



Margarita Finance is being developed within Obligate, an on-chain bond platform built on Polygon. The goal is to spin Margarita into a DAO once its network and token are launched. Of Obligate’s 15 employees, five are currently working on Margarita. Building Margarita on Solana was much easier than in an Ethereum-compatible environment due to Solana’s token-2022 standard, Schuppli said.&nbsp;



Margarita announced $1 million in pre-seed funding two weeks ago, and it is in the process of raising seed funding, Schuppli said. The project also received a grant from the Solana Foundation.&nbsp;



Margarita isn’t the first crypto outfit to try out structured products, but it does think it can be the most straightforward to use.&nbsp;



“They’ve been very clunky and very technical,” Schuppli said of some other structured product implementations. “DeFi and financial products oftentimes are created by people with a technical bias.”



We’ll see if that’s enough of an improvement for Margarita to make onchain structured products a thing — and whether the degen products of TradFi are degen enough for DeFi.



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Meet the project bringing TradFi’s ‘degen products’ to Solana

David Canellis

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If a thriving blockchain ecosystem were a recipe, the ingredients would go something like this:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>One consensus mechanism</li>



<li>Four DeFi apps*</li>



<li>A driven founder/figurehead</li>



<li>One native stablecoin (at least)</li>



<li>Two legal entities (dev studio and foundation)</li>



<li>One token bridge (minimum)</li>



<li>Three terminally online reply guys</li>
</ul>



The secret ingredient would be one or more of the following: funding rounds, mid-cap memecoins, NFT collections, active VC funds and third-party validator clients.



*Minimum required DeFi apps: DEX w/ token launchpads, lending/collateralized debt, liquid staking, oracle



So, while there are now hundreds of smart contract platforms with halfway decent market capitalizations, not all are buzzing to quite the same degree as the majors — Ethereum, Solana and BNB.



Case in point: XRPL, which has all but $63 million <a href="https://defillama.com/chain/XRPL">TVL</a> in its onchain apps. Ripple Labs is right now working hard on finishing its own recipe, more than 12 years after its launch.



Starting easy, XRPL does have the consensus mechanism, albeit without the usual staking or mining, instead relying on trusted validators. And it already has a few token bridges.



There are also two legal entities: the San Francisco-headquartered Ripple Labs and the Estonian non-profit XRP Ledger Foundation, which was recently <a href="https://xrpl.org/blog/2024/evolving-the-xrp-ledger">rebranded</a> to the Inclusive Financial Technology Foundation.



Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse obviously ticks the box for driven founder-slash-figurehead.



As for the reply guys, David Schwartz, Ripple Labs’ long-serving CTO, has built a following on solid <a href="https://x.com/JoelKatz/with_replies">reply</a> guy energy (check).



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcjHp4yM7YokZsMXlYr7xqLGcxzwWDssl8W-bNLlnUo36AzSf-FdkUXxBaK46uiE-Gx6KuuraefqfKPb5Gk0ZGZaNk7ZUg_dq2WQro1mR39myFjtvfWE4mzHVdJ6jwox5aF11FNuA?key=3EbJpl66pmtt39sBTheYnS8N" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Every major blockchain could do with a David Schwartz</figcaption></figure>



And anyone who has ever tweeted anything remotely critique-adjacent has likely been visited by the XRP Army — which together truly harnesses the power of much more than just two reply guys (check check).



That leaves the four DeFi apps and a native stablecoin.&nbsp;



XRPL currently has <a href="https://dappradar.com/rankings/protocol/xrpl">four</a> DeFi apps with 100 unique active wallets interacting with them daily right now — but three of them are DEXs and one is an NFT marketplace. As of last month, it does have a <a href="https://xrpl.org/docs/concepts/decentralized-storage/price-oracles">native</a> oracle, which should help to attract builders.



And conveniently, XRPL is the exception to the rule (with no direct staking XRP as part of consensus), so it can do without the liquid staking app in any case.



The only ingredients then left are a bustling lending protocol and a native stablecoin.



Luckily, a stablecoin is very much on the way: Ripple USD (RLUSD), which the New York State Department of Financial Services just <a href="https://x.com/bgarlinghouse/status/1866571228464460215">approved</a> for offering.



It’ll be structured similarly to Circle’s USDT and Tether’s USDT, backed by cash and equivalents (mostly short-dated US Treasurys).



With XRPL so close to acquiring all the necessary ingredients to really pop, it’s no surprise then that DeFi veteran Robert Leshner is now <a href="https://www.dlnews.com/articles/defi/robert-leshner-is-looking-to-back-defi-projects-on-ripple/">open</a> to backing projects building out the Ripple ecosystem via his fund (VC bonus point get!).



The pièce de résistance for XRPL would then be a roster of its own mid-cap memecoins, as is traditional fare.&nbsp;



Like it or not, those are <a href="https://dexscreener.com/xrpl?rankBy=trendingScoreH24&amp;order=desc">cooking</a> too, although the biggest of which is an XRP Army-themed coin with a $45 million market cap (still too small).&nbsp;



The bright side: Only $15 million in tokens were <a href="https://dexscreener.com/xrpl?rankBy=trendingScoreH24&amp;order=desc">traded</a> on XRPL in the past day. Should RLUSD find decent traction, watch that number only go up from here to fully round out the recipe.&nbsp;



Bellisimo!



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Ripple could still nail this magic blockchain recipe

Ben Strack

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



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The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on Wednesday is set to vote on whether Caroline Crenshaw will remain an SEC commissioner.&nbsp;&nbsp;



While the crypto industry has <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-crypto-anti-innovation-crusade">criticized</a> SEC Chair Gary Gensler, crypto lobbyist group Cedar Innovation Foundation (and <a href="https://x.com/JSeyff/status/1865147022812049635">others</a>) have <a href="https://x.com/CIFonX/status/1866529102309531790">called</a> Crenshaw even more anti-crypto than him.



Coinbase’s Emilie Choi last week <a href="https://x.com/emiliemc/status/1865191039495024804">pointed out</a> that Crenshaw &#8220;embarrassingly&#8221; <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/commissioner-etf-statements-signals-contention">opposed</a> spot bitcoin ETFs. Those have amassed combined net inflows of $33.9 billion and counting.



Indeed, Crenshaw called the SEC’s approval of the products in January “unsound and ahistorical” — adding “they put us on a wayward path that could further sacrifice investor protection.”



Cody Carbone, president of The Digital Chamber, argued in a <a href="https://digitalchamber.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/TDC-Crenshaw-Nomination-Letter.pdf">letter</a> to committee members that Crenshaw — in <a href="https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/crenshaw-statement-spot-bitcoin-011023">her dissent</a> on spot bitcoin ETFs — cited outdated studies and ignored the industry’s maturity.&nbsp;



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-grayscale-spot-bitcoin-etf">Judges ruled</a> in August 2023 that the SEC had arbitrarily and capriciously denied such products after greenlighting bitcoin futures funds.



Crenshaw was sworn in as an SEC commissioner in Aug. 2020. Carbone pointed out what many have before: During her tenure, “the agency leaned heavily on a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/regulation-by-enforcement-unsustainable">regulation-by-enforcement</a> approach, creating an unpredictable environment that has stifled innovation and undermined investor confidence.”



I asked a representative for Crenshaw whether the commissioner has had any change of heart on bitcoin ETFs or the crypto space more broadly. I did not get an immediate response.&nbsp;



Gensler said last month he would <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gary-gensler-resigning">depart the SEC</a> on Jan. 20 (Inauguration Day). Fellow Democrat Commissioner Jaime Lizárraga is <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-departures-regulation-changes">also set to leave</a> the agency that day. 



That leaves crypto-friendly Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda as commissioners — with terms ending in 2025 and <a href="https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024-1">2028</a>, respectively. 



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Crypto industry sounds off on SEC’s Crenshaw ahead of vote

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There was <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/microsoft-bitcoin-balance-sheet">a proposal</a> asking Microsoft’s board of directors to assess whether holding bitcoin on the company’s balance sheet would benefit shareholders long-term.&nbsp;



Shareholders voted against it, the company revealed Tuesday. This wasn’t really a surprise, as the board had pushed for that result, giving the following rationale: 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1432" height="528" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Board-recommendation.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-95226" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Board-recommendation.png?w=1432 1432w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Board-recommendation.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Board-recommendation.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Board-recommendation.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Board-recommendation.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Board-recommendation.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Board-recommendation.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Board-recommendation.png?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1432px) 100vw, 1432px" /></figure>



Still, bitcoin bull <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-salesmen-michael-saylor-larry-fink">Michael Saylor</a> got some face time (sort of) with company directors and shareholders via a pre-recorded <a href="https://x.com/saylor/status/1863323760511627565">presentation</a> played at today’s meeting.



Saylor has <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-salesmen-michael-saylor-larry-fink">creatively described bitcoin</a> in many ways over the years — from an “apex property of the human race” to “a city in cyberspace that is 276 blocks wide, 276 blocks high [and] 276 blocks deep” (referencing its supply cap of 21 million).



During the Microsoft presentation, the MicroStrategy founder referred to bitcoin as:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>“The greatest digital transformation of the 21st century”</li>



<li>“A revolutionary advance in capital preservation”</li>



<li>“Highest performing uncorrelated asset”</li>



<li>“Outperforming Microsoft by 10x annually”</li>



<li>“An asset without counterparty risk”  </li>
</ul>



“It makes a lot more sense to buy bitcoin than to buy your own stock back, or to hold bitcoin rather than holding bonds,” Saylor argued.&nbsp;



The proposal rejection was not the result many in the crypto industry wanted. But Microsoft claims its management already carefully considers investing in bitcoin. And with more companies adopting BTC as a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/company-treasuries-btc-reserve-asset">reserve asset</a>, maybe the tech giant will follow suit another time.&nbsp;



If nothing else, Saylor got to say his piece to a different audience.&nbsp;



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Microsoft BTC-related shareholder proposal rejected

Casey Wagner

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US equity markets were muted Tuesday as traders await key inflation data. November’s consumer price index (CPI) report will drop tomorrow before the open, followed by the producer price index (PPI) report on Thursday morning.&nbsp;



A quick recap of expectations for tomorrow:&nbsp;



Analysts are anticipating November’s annual CPI figure to come in at 2.7%, a moderate uptick from October. Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, is projected to show a 3.3% annual increase and a 0.3% month-over-month increase in November.&nbsp;



Housing costs will be in focus tomorrow after the shelter index in October increased by 0.4% from the prior month. Other indexes that saw monthly increases in October were used cars and trucks (+0.3%), medical care (+0.3%) and airline fares (+3.2%). The significant rise in airline fares specifically can be attributed to higher fuel prices and increased demand in the weeks leading up to holiday travel.&nbsp;



As we wrote about <a href="https://forward-guidance.beehiiv.com/p/weekday-month-day-9b1457d9b8d913de">yesterday</a>, the background for this week’s inflationary numbers is a (generally speaking) Goldilocks jobs report from last week. Goldilocks jobs report + as-expected CPI and PPI reports = rate cut. Right? Well, probably.&nbsp;



Let’s rewind to that “Goldilocks” jobs report from last week.&nbsp;



The economy added 227,000 jobs in November. That was more than the expected 202,000 and a big increase from the 36,000 positions added in October (upwardly revised from a previously reported 12,000). All in all good, right? Ah, but there were some pesky figures included in last week’s report, too.&nbsp;



Hourly wages are still on the rise. They were 4% higher annually in November, coming in just above expectations of 3.9%. Unemployment also increased, hitting 4.2% in November, up from 4.1% in October.&nbsp;



Plus, even as positions appear to be increasing, it’s getting harder to find a job. Latest initial jobless claims figures showed that continuing claims increased by 9,000 to 1.91 million for the week ended Nov. 16 — hitting the highest level since November 2021.&nbsp;



So, not the prettiest picture for the labor market.&nbsp;



Still, Fed funds futures markets appear pretty certain (86% sure, to be exact) that FOMC members will opt to cut interest rates by 25 basis points next week. This would be in line with what Fed officials told us earlier this year, and we know Chair Jerome Powell doesn’t like to surprise the market.&nbsp;



What’s going to be more of a wild card is what we see from the Fed in 2025. We’ve already seen officials start to prime markets for a slower-paced cutting cycle. Governor Michelle Bowman — who, you might remember, dissented on the FOMC’s decision to cut by 50bps in September — mirrored Powell’s language last week, saying the central bank needs to move “cautiously” going forward. 



Plus, 2025 will bring a new (old) president with some familiar and some not-so-familiar <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/unpacking-trump-potential-tariff-policies">economic policies</a>. Buckle up.



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Traders brace for key inflation data this week 

Donovan Choy

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">subscribe</a>.



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After announcing its ME token back in August, Magic Eden finally launched the token today, alongside an impressive number of listings across several tier one and two centralized exchanges.



About 10 minutes before launch, ME saw a 47% spike from $6.04 to a high of $8.9 on its pre-launch perps on <a href="https://app.aevo.xyz/perpetual/me">Aevo</a>. Two hours after launch, however, ME has cratered to a $581 million market cap, down 60% from $1.48 billion.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcm5Eqhy-Q5NOlHJwY9TEplLoNEDYHWYwQRhfqRQ5devtzlNteOkTvDXVhbeguQeDJDHoW9OT9PrX72b27Bc1qroT5mHQjAOa6U7ANCBQY5uU3RI6SdGdUNVnLnZ-Pt6xuDxwXy8Q?key=tMqbuyp0Co6UjV-kx_GiQ3m8" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://www.okx.com/trade-spot/me-usdt?channelid=43776722">OKX</a></figcaption></figure>



Users are reporting technical <a href="https://x.com/TheCryptoLif7/status/1866486622231068732">difficulties</a> <a href="https://x.com/punk9059/status/1866489409790681538">trying</a> to claim the airdrop on the Magic Eden wallet. As part of Magic Eden’s criteria, users had to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/magic-eden-confirms-token-expansion-beyond-nfts">install its mobile walle</a>t and link their other wallets to prove eligibility for claiming.



Magic Eden originally launched as a NFT trading platform <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-marketplace-magic-eden-to-offer-ethereum-nfts">on Solana</a> in 2021, and later also deployed on Polygon and Base.



Magic Eden successfully capitalized on the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/runes-bitcoin-token-standard-ordinals">Bitcoin NFT</a> craze in early 2024, processing about <a href="https://www.nftpulse.org/marketplaces?chain=bitcoin">83%</a> ($1.7 billion) of all Ordinals and Runes NFTs trading volumes in the past year.



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NFT marketplace Magic Eden airdrops ME

Macauley Peterson

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The Interchain Foundation (ICF) has acquired Skip, a 20-person team deeply embedded in the Cosmos ecosystem, signaling a transformative shift in its operational model. The acquisition establishes a new subsidiary, Interchain Inc., which will oversee product development, ecosystem strategy and execution, led by Skip co-founders Barry Plunkett and Maghnus Mareneck.



The move departs from ICF’s previous model of funding independent teams to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cosmos-ecosystem-receives-funding">develop parts</a> of the Cosmos stack. Instead, it centralizes development efforts to align work across the Cosmos Hub, its tech stack and the broader ecosystem.



Ethan Buchman, Cosmos co-founder and an outgoing ICF Foundation Council member, praised the acquisition as a pivotal step forward.



“[It’s] time to realize all the latent potential seething beneath the surface of the [Cosmos] and the [Cosmos Hub],” Buchman <a href="https://x.com/buchmanster/status/1866451086590300634">said</a>. His company, Informal Systems, previously coordinated major upgrades like <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cosmos-greenlights-interchain-security">Interchain Security</a> (ICS) and had identified Skip as its top choice for leadership in the ecosystem.



Informal Systems had made a “small angel investment” in Skip in 2022, but Buchman emphasized that the investment was repurchased by Skip to eliminate any perceived conflict of interest.



Plunkett described the acquisition as a deeply emotional moment for Skip, rooted in his ideological alignment with Cosmos’ mission. “Cosmos is the last ecosystem and stack that truly upholds the values of our movement: sovereignty for users and developers, permissionlessness, and trust-minimization,” <a href="https://x.com/BPIV400/status/1866457471348343261">Plunkett said</a> on X.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Tackling Cosmos’ ‘liquidity crisis’</h2>



Skip aims to resolve what Plunkett calls a liquidity crisis in Cosmos. The lack of liquidity has hindered developers, driving many to alternative ecosystems. The Cosmos Hub and its native token, <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/atom">ATOM</a>, will play a central role in addressing this issue.



The <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/cosmos">Cosmos</a> tech stack — including the Cosmos SDK, IBC protocol, and CometBFT consensus — is utilized by over 115 interconnected blockchains and secures billions in assets. However, fragmentation, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cosmos-fork-jae-kwon">political strife</a> and a lack of unifying leadership have created challenges for developers in recent years.



“The Cosmos Hub right now doesn’t serve any kind of functions for the broader ecosystem, and it’s extremely hard to build on,” Plunkett told Blockworks. “We need to fix that by making it easier for builders and ensuring the Hub provides services to grow and scale chains, especially in terms of liquidity.”



The acquisition is part of ICF’s broader strategy to centralize engineering, growth and marketing efforts, creating a cohesive vision for the development of the Cosmos Hub and the Interchain Stack.



Skip and ICF will seek endorsement from Cosmos Hub governance for their plan in January.



“But ultimately, we don’t have control over that at all,&#8221; Mareneck said.



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Radical change at the ICF: A new era for the Cosmos ecosystem?

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">subscribe</a>.



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Abe Simpson’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DlTexEXxLQ">rant</a> about the difficulties of staying hip as you age is just as insightful when applied to crypto.



Five years ago, you might have been with “it.” You might’ve stacked your portfolio with coins like litecoin, XRP, stellar and cardano, and maybe even zilliqa, waltonchain, lisk or omisego.



But the market soon changed what “it” was. Now what you’re holding isn’t “it” anymore, and what’s “it” seems weird (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ai-agent-crypto-innovation">AI agent memecoins</a>) and scary (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/pumpdotfun-suspends-livestream-feature">pump.fun rugs</a>).



It’ll happen to you!



While looking back, 2019 does feel like another world — years before Bored Apes, Ethereum <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-layer-2-blockspace">layer-2s</a> and memecoins other than DOGE — some things haven’t changed at all.&nbsp;



The top three coins this morning were BTC, ETH and XRP, just as they were back then. You can even go further into the past to July 2016 and <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20160701/">find</a> the exact same projects in podium positions.



Still, outside of those three, much of the market indeed looks vastly different than it did in previous cycles. Hundreds or even thousands of coins have fallen off.&nbsp;



NEO, IOTA, Tezos, Ontology, NEM and Zcash were top-25 projects in May 2019. Now Tezos is the only one barely in the top 100, replaced by Solana, Toncoin, Avalanche and Chainlink.



But as we all <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/altcoin-market-returns-against-btc">wait for altcoin season</a> to lift boats, a string of dino coins are doing their best to keep ahead of the curve.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfR_-fvLkXUkkz8Q0_2rPQ3UZ71ozfuJsCLgi2bHyTG8oytf35gDINeGyz5vssJfyVipmjxhxmjyOUhj1YQV4MmFFmFyblCNu78mJ9Fywfd0eUt-LA5jiz5ZYwjp_y2dvZS5qFzyQ?key=MYZswGjgDNxlCAK6SVo5sWGe" alt=""/></figure>



I spent the morning filtering price data for coins in the current top 250 by market cap, specifically their bitcoin ratios (their price in BTC).



You probably know, but when bitcoin goes up, the market tends to move everything else up to compensate. USD-denominated prices are then mostly noise — the signal is easier to find by comparing how coins are doing against bitcoin itself.



As it turns out, of the 188 coins in the top 250 that aren’t stablecoins, liquid staking or wrapped tokens, one-third (61) have had their bitcoin ratios rise in the past year (they’ve outperformed BTC).



And of those coins, almost one-third (20) are what you might consider dino coins — tokens tied to projects that were launched at least five years ago. Those are shown in purple on the chart above.



Still, newer coins absolutely dominate. The best-performing dino coin in the past year, CHEX, the native token for license-heavy RWA chain Chintai, has returned about 300% against bitcoin in the past year.&nbsp;



Meanwhile, I had to remove seven newer tokens from the first chart as their bitcoin ratios had ballooned by thousands of percent, completely dwarfing the rest of the coins. Four of them were memecoins (WIF, BRETT, POPCAT and MOG) as well as mantra, virtuals and aerodrome.



What’s cool is that the market also does seem to be paying attention to some more obscure dino coins.&nbsp;



There are the obvious ones: DOGE, XRP, XLM, BNB and TRX. which all rallied hard in the past few weeks. But there’s also coins like livepeer, telcoin, nervos, reserve rights and XYO, which rarely show up on many radars.



Calling it now: This altcoin season is one for the eclectic crypto hipster that doesn’t care what “it” is at all.



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Staying hip in crypto is no easy feat

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Max Resnick, who has in recent months become one of Ethereum’s more notable online figures, has joined Solana core development shop Anza, he announced on X today.&nbsp;



Resnick previously worked at a Consensys subsidiary named Special Mechanisms Group and became known for his contrarian beliefs on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/0xresearch-newsletter-eip-7977">Ethereum’s roadmap</a> — arguing that some thinking around layer-2s was misguided and Ethereum should focus on scaling <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-consensus-beam-chain">the base layer</a>. In classic crypto fashion, much of Resnick’s rising star originated on X: Kaito AI <a href="https://yaps.kaito.ai/">ranks</a> him as having the 40th-highest mindshare on Crypto Twitter over the past three months.&nbsp;



Consensys is a software company started by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin in 2014, and is perhaps best known for creating the MetaMask wallet. Anza is a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-solana-core-governance">Solana Labs spin-out</a> that is responsible for continuing to develop the original Solana software.



The move was celebrated in the Solana world, where Resnick’s move to Solana was viewed as something of a coup. For Ethereum, Resnick doesn’t quite reach household name status like Justin Drake or Dankrad Feist do, but another high-profile defection following Resnick’s could certainly “raise some eyebrows,” said Paul Dylan-Ennis, a professor researching crypto at University College Dublin.



Resnick&#8217;s transition to Anza was helped along by Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, who encouraged the researcher to take the leap, Resnick shared with me today. The process started around three months ago. Resnick was also considering moves to Ethereum layer-2s or non-MetaMask crypto wallets.



Resnick <a href="https://x.com/MaxResnick1/status/1866168109289160842">said</a> on X that he would be spending his first 100 days at Anza focusing on fee markets and consensus while getting up to speed on how Solana works at a core level. On a call today, Resnick added that his “moonshot” vision for Solana would be to add “multiple leaders” to the protocol.&nbsp;



On Ethereum and Solana today, one so-called leader is chosen to propose a block for validators to check. Under this model, the single leader has a “ton” of economic power which makes the protocols economically inefficient, Resnick said. Having multiple leaders compete to propose blocks could put downward pressure on how much economic value leaders can extract from validators.&nbsp;



Resnick credits himself with widening Ethereum’s overton window to allow for more serious conversations around how the layer-1 can scale, pointing out Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist’s recent focus on scaling the L1 as an example.



But ultimately, Resnick sees Solana&#8217;s culture as more open to unconventional ideas, such as having multiple leaders — in comparison to Ethereum, which can tend to be bogged down by “political bullshit.”



“The ETH culture is really downstream of core development, and people who actually want to get things done are changing their personality, changing what they&#8217;re suggesting in order to make sure that they preserve political capital with the core dev community,” Resnick said.



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Ethereum researcher Max Resnick makes surprise jump to Solana

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



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US equities pulled back Monday, easing off last week’s gains as geopolitical tensions, a looming rate decision from the Fed and pending inflation data come to a head.&nbsp;



The S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes dipped after Monday’s open, each trading 0.4% lower at 2:15 pm ET.&nbsp;



The share price of Nvidia — Big Tech’s darling that has <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/on-the-margin-newsletter-nvda-market-breadth">surged</a> almost 200% this year — slipped on Monday on news that China opened a probe into the chipmaker on suspicions of anti-monopoly law violations. The investigation comes days after President Joe Biden expanded limits on exports of semiconductors to China. This is part of an effort, the administration says, to limit China’s access to cutting-edge AI technology.&nbsp;



China last week also banned exports of three rare minerals and imposed new sanctions on US defense firms and executives. It’s starting to look like a full-on supply chain war in the final weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.&nbsp;



After opting to respond with parallel tariffs against the US during Trump’s first term, the Chinese government appears to be taking a more aggressive approach this time around. Trade War 2 is going to be a much dirtier fight.&nbsp;



Nvidia did not respond to Blockworks’s request for comment and has not made any public statements on the probe. Nvidia does have a less powerful version of its chips that it has made available to China in the wake of Biden’s policies. Shares were trading 2.4% lower Monday at 2:15 pm ET.



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Chinese Nvidia probe could start Trade War 2

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MicroStrategy has bought more bitcoin, and an analyst team has upped its Coinbase <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/mstr-coin-price-targets">stock price target</a>. But first a look at bitcoin miners, which are increasingly raising capital via convertible note issuances.&nbsp;



Bitdeer last month unveiled a $360 million convertible senior notes offering. Then last week, Marathon Digital, Core Scientific and Iris Energy initiated convertible notes offerings — amounting to $850 million, $550 million and $400 million, respectively.&nbsp;



Seven publicly traded BTC miners and data center companies have raised a combined $5.2 billion via convertible notes since June, according to <a href="https://theminermag.com/news/2024-12-05/miner-weekly-convertible-debt-bitcoin/">data</a> compiled by TheMinerMag. About 70% of that came in the last four weeks.



That MinerMag stat doesn’t include the most recent issuance: Riot Platforms on Monday proposed a $500 million convertible notes offering.



These moves reflect mining firms capitalizing on growing <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/company-treasuries-btc-reserve-asset">bullish sentiment</a> around bitcoin among <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/on-the-margin-newsletter-tradfi-btc-transacting">institutional investors</a>, BlocksBridge Consulting founder Nishant Sharma told me.



“This trend is likely to continue, as we’re in the early stages of a new crypto <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/standard-bitcoin-bull-market-cycle">bull run</a>,” he added. Bitcoin’s price was about $98,000 at 2 pm ET Monday — down 3% from 24 hours ago.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Bitdeer noted the proceeds of its offering would go toward data center expansion, as well as ASIC-based mining rig development and manufacturing.



The firm’s stock has surged 86% over the past month and more than 27% during last Friday’s trading session alone, Benchmark’s Mark Palmer wrote in a Monday research note. Last week’s rally came after the company boosted its SEALMINER A2 mining rig hashrate projection in 2025 from 18 exahash per second (EH/s) to 35 EH/s.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Palmer raised his Bitdeer stock price target from $16 to $29 — noting “the company’s multifaceted business model provides investors with multiple ways to realize upside.”



Marathon and Riot specifically mentioned having their eye on using the capital to buy more BTC. MARA and RIOT share prices are down 3% and down 23%, respectively, over the past month.



Sharma said it wouldn’t surprise him to see Marathon aggressively follow the “compelling precedent” <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/microstrategy-shares-audacious-plan-to-buy-more-bitcoin">set by MicroStrategy</a>, noting MARA and competitor CleanSpark, for example, are well-positioned to take “decisive action” on both mining and “hodling.”&nbsp;



Marathon holds 34,959 BTC, while CleanSpark has 9,297 bitcoins. Hut 8 Mining has 9,122 BTC and said it would use some proceeds from its latest at-the-market (ATM) and stock repurchase <a href="https://hut8.com/2024/12/04/hut-8-announces-new-atm-and-stock-repurchase-programs/">programs</a> to purchase more bitcoin “as a strategic <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/company-treasuries-btc-reserve-asset">reserve asset</a>.”



As teased at the top, MicroStrategy <a href="https://assets.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltb564490bc5201f31/blt81002dc8fb7c8644/6756dfe8d8a11dc3c8ba968b/form-8-k_12-09-2024.pdf">bought</a> another 21,550 bitcoins (for about $2.1 billion in cash) between Dec. 2 and 8, bringing its total pile to 423,650 BTC.



MSTR stock was down more than 4% at 2 pm ET — a bit more than Monday’s BTC price decline.



Coinbase’s share price had dipped 7% Monday by that time, to about $318. Still, Needham analysts John Todaro and Brian Vieten on Monday raised their COIN price target from $375 to $420, noting the crypto exchange is on track (in December) to have its best volumes month since May 2021.



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A crypto stock check-in as miner raises continue 

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One of the more hotly anticipated airdrops is happening today, with the MOVE Token Generation Event (TGE). Movement Labs’ Movement mainnet beta went live on Dec. 5 ahead of today’s “MoveDrop.”



The Movement chain’s big idea is to provide the MoveVM execution environment, but settle to Ethereum, with a focus on the scalability and security sides of the typical blockchain trilemma.



Movement’s approach parallels the Eclipse chain’s use of the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) to extend <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/eclipse-svm-ethereum-mainnet">Ethereum&#8217;s capabilities</a>. Just as Eclipse allows Solana developers to interact seamlessly with Ethereum without abandoning the SVM&#8217;s advantages, Movement Labs enables Move developers to branch out from <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/sui">Sui</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/aptos">Aptos</a>, while still taking advantage of Move’s safety-focus and a high-throughput environment, according to Rushi Manche, co-founder of Movement Labs.



“We are the first and only Move-based Ethereum scaling solution,” Manche, who comes from an Aptos background, told Blockworks. “So, if you think of it, all the benefits of Move combined with Ethereum’s liquidity.”



The TGE distributes up to 10% of the MOVE token supply, designed to reward community contributions and participation. On the first day of trading, MOVE is seeing an $8 billion fully diluted valuation (FDV) down from a high of about $9 billion. That puts it in the vicinity of Celestia (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/tia">TIA</a>) and Mantle Network (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/mnt">MNT</a>) on an FDV basis.



Movement’s token plays a role in the network operations, as “attestants” must stake MOVE tokens to offer finality guarantees for transactions.



Movement Labs has undergone significant architectural changes during its development. Initially, the project was designed as a standard optimistic rollup on Ethereum. However, optimistic rollups typically have a seven-day period to fully settle on Ethereum.



Unlike rollups, Movement does not need to wait for Ethereum finality, thanks to its &#8220;<a href="https://blog.movementlabs.xyz/article/postconfirmations-L2s-rollups-blockchain-movement">post-confirmation</a>&#8221; mechanism. This system, akin to a <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/bellcurve/0345b516-eb15-11ee-854f-cbb5ba1433a1">pre-confirmation</a>, provides a better user experience given a one-second finality, though at the expense of some security guarantees. While Movement does not inherit Ethereum’s security, the economic collateral from stakers is subject to slashing — closer to the Polygon PoS sidechain than to a zk-rollup.



“We need to have an economic stake built up ahead of time, such that if someone’s malicious or transactions go wrong, we have something to slash,” Manche said, in justifying the launch of the token before the production version of the Movement mainnet.



Developers stand to benefit from Movement’s architecture. A high-throughput execution environment and improvements to <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/smart-contracts">smart contract</a> security are at the core of the Move programming language, which is widely regarded as being safer than <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/glossary/#solidity-programming-language-ethereum">Solidity</a>. Some examples of applications already building on the network include the Meridian DEX, lending market Echelon, and Bracket, which offers innovative prediction market tools.&nbsp;



Movement’s competitive strategy is focused on community and developer engagement.



“The moat is in each community, which is something that you can&#8217;t fork,” Manche said, noting their approach avoids unsustainable practices like incentivized liquidity programs.



Manche says Movement is more closely-aligned with other Move-based chains than it is to Ethereum.



“Obviously, we’re an odd duck in the EVM and Ethereum community, given the fact that we&#8217;re doing alternative VMs, we have an alternative rollup framework and the architecture of the token design as well,” Manche said.



But there’s room for the full-range of experimentation in the Ethereum design space to compete with high-throughput chains like Solana, he said.



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MOVE drops following Movement mainnet beta

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It goes without saying: What’s good for bitcoin is good for bitcoin ETFs.



No surprise then that almost $10 billion net has now flowed into US-listed spot funds since Trump’s win — about 83% going to BlackRock’s IBIT.



Some ETFs are still doing better than others.



To be clear: Share prices for the ETFs, by design, closely track the price of bitcoin. But share prices don’t reflect whether the funds themselves are up or down on their bitcoin purchases to date.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdBtcG8v9xnbBpBH-aO0RfFs8gbaggwf6IERtUb0tjI4KLQ9uCAVZxcZZUDsznAh8hMOIFFx0YaqAh6y5ulfNNBqQrkq199DC77XNZpc0AkflD2Q7muyhv9DWav_9d5wlixySwkJg?key=SqGwdpxRB2p0l4T3I5c5Fq1I" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Blue is IBIT, orange is GBTC. Notice that flows relaxed when bitcoin’s price trended sideways</figcaption></figure>



Every stock market trading day, the funds must spend the cash flowing into them on an equivalent amount of BTC. And vice versa: They must offload coins when net flows are negative.



So, it’s possible to calculate an estimate for how much BTC each fund buys and sells per day, by dividing the daily US dollar flow figures by the price of bitcoin (per CF Benchmark reference <a href="https://www.cfbenchmarks.com/data/indices/BRR">rate</a>, which all the major funds use).



Tally those BTC-denominated flows together and you get their cumulative current holdings: over 855,000 BTC ($84.2 billion), not counting Grayscale’s GBTC and BTC, and more than 1.1 million BTC ($108.3 billion) when included. That’s about 5.6% of the circulating supply.



But what we’re after is the value of each fund’s BTC stash compared to how much they paid for all those coins, what I’ve called relative value on the chart below.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcXDv2xjHhAsF_fWQULTJ4FqRlgorCM9e0VahU5dPDl0cYxjfPDP5KsLF0nPlMxRd8tJ6qzPFhfQ_Kju5KE1CZij62xLr0nUib6XNQclC8bJcDlJiGqXhq_1R5g5-4DMX71FIEWaw?key=SqGwdpxRB2p0l4T3I5c5Fq1I" alt=""/></figure>



It turns out that Invesco-Galaxy’s BTCO is far ahead of the rest of the pack — it has acquired around 8,740 BTC net for $418.9 million so far. As of this morning, BTCO’s bitcoin would fetch $860.6 million, putting its shareholder collective ahead by more than 100%.



As you can see on the next chart, three-quarters of BTCO’s net flows to date came in the first two weeks of live trading, when bitcoin was changing hands for under $43,000.



BTCO’s average estimated purchase price per coin: $47,930.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcdqmgWhShsEwz-1EfKg6jcfKhmUDvqA30IOfvAmwVaVgmSxICIct67biDtKWIH4xFFm3L_gepWAgarCN2LTdITLQWF-toF7hamAv4kiaB7NxLRB9M3j5Hm17yym7lk-kxWgYtqug?key=SqGwdpxRB2p0l4T3I5c5Fq1I" alt=""/></figure>



Compare that to BlackRock’s IBIT. It has maintained more steady flows over the past 11 months — acquiring roughly 523,935 BTC from $34.4 billion net flows.&nbsp;



That means the ETF has effectively dollar-cost averaged its bitcoin stash to date, giving it an average coin price of $65,600. 



IBIT is about 50% ahead on its BTC purchases to date and has timed the market worse than any other fund in the cohort.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfe_CRn3P8MvkOXsziSHlAO8wxj-ljSYoGLHOCH1Mdg6FCo1Cyb8-Ol_5qXuv5BnINRYxVqcE8VgXgnFtMm5RRYU8o5SqOSiXiXD-cfDU0TdlPpn9OQ4OKeQhn16k2x8zwux5-taA?key=SqGwdpxRB2p0l4T3I5c5Fq1I" alt=""/></figure>



Of course, IBIT’s BTC has appreciated much more than BTCO’s in raw dollar terms, on account of the sheer size of the fund by comparison.&nbsp;



Still, hats off to BTCO’s contributors. Now let’s see how long they can hold.



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Some bitcoin ETFs are doing better than others

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Need some holiday cheer this Monday morning? Don’t worry, I’ve got you: Bitcoin at $120,000 could be a thing by Christmas.&nbsp;



Or so Steven McClurg, Canary Capital CEO, thinks.&nbsp;



“There’s a lot of appetite” for bitcoin and bitcoin ETFs, which could fuel the run, he added.&nbsp;



I’m not going to sugarcoat it. That type of run looks tough right now. Over the weekend, bitcoin mostly sat below six figures, unable to take — and hold — $100k.



But McClurg told me all of the work he’s done has led him to believe that a rally could happen. And even if $120,000 remains elusive into the next year, he’s hopeful that it’s a matter of when we see it rather than if.&nbsp;



And, if we don’t see that number by Christmas, he’s fairly certain we’ll see it before we ring in the new year.&nbsp;



Keep in mind, McClurg’s price target is <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/btc-price-levels-to-watch">fairly similar</a> (a mere $5k short) to Ledn’s John Glover’s PT.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfUjUtzFoX5Q6DYBLe20tjsHU89i9kB6mMumQ0BVWDXMVbYrNiDSVmGckPRpqufX8kgdcp5qCtG_6JDL0e0CdOhsX7UESiEc7gY0oo6yHzNuhm8C-lICUuGylKkpVJ48nGdNjvOwQ?key=SqGwdpxRB2p0l4T3I5c5Fq1I" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Just look at how far we’ve come this year</figcaption></figure>



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-100k-breakout-just-the-start">As I wrote last week</a>, some analysts are concerned that late January could mark a turning point for bitcoin.



K33’s Vetle Lunde, in a note, wrote: “The average distance between BTC’s first cycle ATH and its last ATH during its past three cycles is 318 days. Under the assumption that average trajectories hold, a peak would occur on January 17. This is not unlikely, given that Trump’s inauguration will take place on January 20.”



McClurg doesn’t think we’ll see the market peak next month. Instead, he reckons it could last anywhere from June to October, which is specifically based on the fact that bitcoin historically runs for roughly six months after a new president takes office.&nbsp;



When I asked whether or not the four-year cycle will hold moving forward, McClurg said yes…with a twist.&nbsp;



“I believe that cycle will still be there, but that being said, bitcoin will begin to follow the broader macroeconomic cycle closer over time than the typical four-year cycle,” he told me.



Now this is important to note for a few reasons: We have a few macro events incoming. Not only are we getting the all-important November CPI this week, but we also have the Federal Reserve meeting next week. Both of which could have a positive (or negative, depending on the data and what’s said) impact for bitcoin.&nbsp;



It seems like it’ll be par for the course to see continued fluctuation between the upper $90k’s and $100k.



Still, who knows. The market could feel merry and bright in light of the holidays, and a $120k run is just around the corner.



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$120K by Xmas: Why another bitcoin run could be in the cards

Two double-digit rounds led the funding announcements this week. The first came from Spexi, which is a DePIN for drone imagery.&nbsp;



Spexi raised $11.5 million in a Series A led by Blockchange Ventures. The round comes two years after it raised a seed round.&nbsp;



The firm developed “an innovative, blockchain-based ‘Fly to Earn’ network” back in 2017. It seeks to advance “the aerial imagery industry by building a scalable global network of drone pilots to capture and deliver frequently updated, data-rich earth, fully standardized imagery to both the public and private sectors — all with near-zero emissions.”



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-exec-founds-internet-depin">Solana Foundation exec departs for ‘the most interesting experiment in crypto’</a>



“With our ability to scale rapidly and deliver superior data with near-zero emissions, I am proud that we are not only supporting essential government and emergency response services at a fraction of the usual cost, but also driving the future of <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/artificial-intelligence">AI</a> and metaverse-powered technologies across industries globally,” said Bill Lakeland, CEO of Spexi.



The company said its dataset is being used to train AI models.



&#8220;Spexi has defined a new category of business by pairing better and cheaper drone imagery with the blockchain&#8217;s ability to ensure image integrity. Spexi is not simply replacing existing satellite imaging use cases, but opening entirely new markets in geospatial, insurance, AI, public safety, government, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/gaming">gaming</a> and more,” Blockchange’s Ken Seiff said.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/depin-monetized-tesla-dashcam-data">Turning Tesla cameras into data engines</a>



Union Labs announced that it raised $12 million in a Series A round led by Gumi Cryptos Capital and Long Hash Capital.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">zkgm, Union Labs is thrilled to announce its $12M Series A round, led by <a href="https://twitter.com/GumiCryptos?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GumiCryptos</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/LongHashVC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@LongHashVC</a>, bringing total capital raised to $16M. <a href="https://t.co/nNtzBupy77">pic.twitter.com/nNtzBupy77</a>&mdash; Union (@union_build) <a href="https://twitter.com/union_build/status/1863980783574323309?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 3, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



The cross-chain protocol helps blockchains communicate with each other.&nbsp;



By using consensus verification, Union remains independent from centralized entities, allowing it to support any ecosystem/asset with minimal trusted actors.



&#8220;This, combined with our hyper-efficient zk architecture, allows us to deliver subsecond transfer times between chains,” Union explained. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Other notable funding news:&nbsp;</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Brighty <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/12/03/2990863/0/en/Brighty-Raises-10-Million-to-Enable-Crypto-Payments-in-the-Real-World.html">announced</a> a $10 million raise. Futurecraft Ventures led the round. </li>



<li>Yuga Labs <a href="https://x.com/FonzGm/status/1863665269975159276">acquired</a> Tokenproof’s tech team for an undisclosed amount.</li>



<li>Avant <a href="https://x.com/avantprotocol/status/1864354170415009876">said</a> it raised $6.5 million in a seed funding round. Avalanche and Superlayer were notable investors.</li>



<li>Fiamma <a href="https://x.com/Fiamma_Chain">announced</a> it raised $4 million in a seed round led by Faction and L2 Iterative Ventures. </li>



<li>Sekai <a href="https://x.com/joinsekai/status/1864703483120951786">said</a> it raised $3.1 million in a seed round led by Hashed.</li>
</ul>



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



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